


The Bitter End

by rosekay



Category: Dead Like Me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-23
Updated: 2007-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosekay/pseuds/rosekay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>George is a barista.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bitter End

**Author's Note:**

> Written for treelines

 

 

 _Will train,_ it says.

George thinks, _fair enough_.

*

As managers go, Matt's not that bad. He doesn't really ask her about her weird hours, or when she has to take extra long breaks and random days off to hike across the city (to kill someone), but he's a little obsessive.

"Can you taste it? The sweetness? That subtle - "

_I'm an enormous douchebag._

George zones him out in self-defense while she manfully chokes down the dark stuff. All bitter.

*

"Peanut, you look like shit."

_You ok?_

Rube doesn't even do her the courtesy of looking up from his paper, but his mouth is soft when he says it. Still, if he can't be bothered to look, she can't be bothered to glare.

The clink of glass reluctantly draws her attention.

"You want some coffee, Georgie?"

_Ask me! Ask me what the fuck I put in it! Ask me! Ask me!_

Mason's holding out his mug in the manner of a hobo rattling for change. If hobos were a few degrees more desperate and uniformly half blind. She recoils from the smell, retreating into the circle of her arms.

"What's in it?"

"What's that?" Mason blinks at her a little myopically through a haze of something she probably doesn't want to know. He's grinning though.

George manages a muffled but sincere _fuck you._ Of course, this just means the shit keeps piling on.

"Your new job; it must be so perfectly darling!" Daisy's hands flutter around her own cup like doves. Manicured, lobotomized doves. She's just powdered her nose again, and it's sort of aggressively smooth. "I always thought it would be _awfully_ romantic to try something like that. A little absinthe in the _Montparnasse_. You know, I once - "

_I'm lonely. Come home._

"We don't serve absinthe," George interrupts.

Mason takes a deep, deeply obnoxious slurp from his mug. "It's legal, now, innit? America the beautiful!"

_These are the things I keep track of. Can I get a free drink from you?_

"How's the job, kiddo?" Rube prompts. Still not looking.

_Look at me._

"Soul sucking," George tells the inside of her elbows.

_I'll get back to you on that one._

*

The thing is, she's had a taste of food service before, and she threw that up in greasy globs, so there's really no reason she should have given it a second shot at all. 

But the place was short on employees after _A. McNeill, 3:47 pm_ and _G. B. Benthall 3:52 pm_ , and who is George to turn down money?

In Matt's mind, his _vision_ , the joint is a nationally known, artisanal café where dedicated servers pour perfect lattes and the languid intelligentsia linger after hours, smoke curling poetically into the air. It's a La Panier, a Caffe Ladro, or even a Cherry Street. Or at least that's the part George absorbed from his vaguely alarming recruitment speech. In reality, it's a tiny storefront in a moderately touristy, depressingly nondescript area. Their lack of an automatic machine isn't so much a dedication to craft as a dedication to a lack of business. Or just an excuse for her to develop calluses in unsettling and annoying places on her hands. Grind, tamp, shot, _voila._ Music's already in her ears, permanent burns in place on the winding, expectant joints of her fingers.

She learns good crema and rare varietals and bullshit. Especially that last one. Most _importantly_ that last one. How to get the right microbubbles. How to tame soymilk. Brewing temperatures and special grinds and perfect, tight thirty-second shots, dark narrow fall spooning to a creamy finish. Bullshit Italian and some pretty fucking weird European habits. George only wishes that referred to porn. The Italians are naturally the worst.

Mostly, she learns double talk.

For example, a tourist asks, "Where's the Needle?"

It means: _I'm retarded._

George replies, "There's an information booth down the street."

She means: _You're retarded._

"I asked for skim milk."

_I'm entitled. I do Pilates. I'm tackily showcasing Chanel earrings. I'm upper class. I'm middle class. I'm trying to be both. I go home and flip through beauty magazines for tips I'll never get to use. I'm sixty. I'm twelve and shouldn't be having the fucking caffeine in the first place. I'm an asshole._

George says, "Just give me a moment, ma'am."

_Fuck. You._

"I know the manager. Would you do me a favor? I know your coffee's a dollar sixty, but I only have - "

_I'm a mooch and a flake, and I'm going to wring every last penny out of you. Now give me a frequent user card._

George says, "Sorry, you know it doesn't work like that."

_Don't let the door hit your giant ass on the way out. Actually -_

"I just need a cup of coffee."

_I need a lot more than that._

George says, "Here you go."

_Sorry, man. If I could, I'd add some booze for you._

"You a student?"

 _You legal_?

George says, "No."

_Thanks, I'm just going to go wash myself now, creep._

"What do you mean you charge for your hot water?"

_I'm spoiled, and I know it._

George says, "Sorry, sir, I can't just give it to you."

 _Oh I'll give it you, in your_ face. __

*

George has learned to keep an iron eye on that little jar, attitude changing on a dime, literally. It's actually pretty pathetic, cursing out some poor, harried mother ( _oh come on, lady, you can't spare your fucking thirty five cents of change?_ ) for a couple coins, but has George ever denied the fact that she likes money? There are times, with ten drinks in line for the machine, an endless crowd of people milling about her counter, when she feels like the whole world could snap on a rattle of change. She'd fight a Graveling for a quarter.

The worst asshole, she's come to see, can be redeemed by a judicious five or twenty in the jar.

She always found a certain thrill in looking into people's houses when she was little, the little peaks and glimpses of lives going on without her even knowing. Now she finds all the annoying tics and habits just as enlightening. Regulars who are chained to their caffeine, showing up two, three times a day for a _hello_ and a scalded tongue. The girls who rub at their shining new engagement rings as if the motion is going to write the fucking sign right in front of George's eyes. She takes perverse pleasure in ignoring them until their faces reach critical passive aggressive mass. There's the tourist yawn, a slack jawed gaze up at an angle unflattering on anyone, followed by enough hemming and hawing to fuel a Congress session. The relative stupidity of questions asked are as good as a detailed report on completion of grade school and whether or not someone has the common sense God gave a cockroach, or maybe a frog. She wouldn't trust any of these assholes with death.

The familiar crease of a brow that means the person is used to be being answered, being obeyed. The nervous, defiant obnoxiousness of teenagers newly let loose with their own money. As far as George is concerned, people are naked when they buy their coffee.

When things get really bad, she has a habit of judging the living by their potential departure under her own auspices. Which, aside from a minor additional occupational detail, doesn't really set her apart from the legions of baristas, waiters and other unlucky bastards wishing really miserable fucking deaths on customers everywhere.

The businessmen, with their deliberate deep voices, loosened ties to show they can still have fun, and strained camaraderie with one another, well, they can feel free to go home to whatever illegal shit gets them through the rest of the day. A guy will walk in, product in his hair, right shirt to go with his suit, redwalls tucked an arm, white fake smile.

"Oh this one's on me, guys, ok?" he'll say to his buddies, all nearly identical.

_I've got the better car, and the better bonus, motherfuckers._

"Aww look at the big man go," one will reply amiably, laughing.

_What a fucking douchebag._

Then George can imagine _G. R. Wentworth. 2:35 AM_ , an embarrassing soon to be permanent erection and a pile of coke. Or maybe a fast car that gets out of control. A fast girl that gets out of control. A client who's finally had enough.

The slouching hipsters, who will ask for _pan au chocolat_ instead of the damn croissants with their pretty fucking obvious labels. They listen to bands that haven't been formed yet, and bop to a mysterious, uniformly annoying beat. They always make George feel bizarrely a little old. And vaguely homicidal.

Some slender, strangely bejeweled guy in pinhole pants and a funky hat, smells a little off, talks in a little off, in a studied almost slur.

"Black coffee," he'll say.

_Less is more. Or maybe more is less is in. Cream and sugar is so -_

"How typical," his girlfriend drawls over a cupped hand and a lighter, maybe petite with sleek, dark hair and a foreign language or two.

 _Our ironic banter makes us seem closer. Does my makeup look ok? I don't want it to look like makeup at all. I'm not one of_ those _girls, Jesus. I need a cigarette._

They'll both look at George with careful near disdain, pale fingers intertwined, but only because traditional is in, even if it's going to be out tomorrow.

Then, helplessly, her mind goes: _J. Dylan, 3:45 pm_ , choked to death on that delicate, fucking gourmet _pan au chocolat_ , lung cancer from the permanent slope of burning scent off chapped lips (ok, not really _her_ office precisely, but same general description, right?), freak accident on the soundstage. Killed by cool.

It's not much of a stretch then to imagine the dead hanging around. She's pretty sure the Natural Causes crowd likes to cluster in one corner, all regular coffees and the occasional sweet pastry indulgence. They all exchange vague head nods when they come in. George still isn't sure what it means. She always feels like they're going to report her. Her coworkers think she's "establishing _rapport_." Yeah, right. Well, she guesses death does know death. She always leaves Kiffany a bigger tip after it happens.

She can see Rubes, who just want some quiet time with their paper and a nice, dark brew to burn the other tastes out of their tongues. Good tippers, smiles for George and wry comments that build on each other like wire cages with each new meeting until they have a complicated if pretty meaningless relationship full of in-jokes and ironic inquiries. She wonders at their stories the same way she does about the real Rube, if they have daughters and sons and grandchildren waiting to hold their lean, veined hands when they go home smelling of thick, dark brew and ink.

The Masons are even easier to spot, either big tippers or big stealers, maybe ultimately good natured, but George is ready to stab half of them when they're barely in the door, slouching and ready for some slack to be cut them for no reason at all. They're glazed over, ready to coast. And it's not like the real Mason doesn't come in from time to time, eyeing the tip jar until George threatens him with a long spoon perfect for gouging out a wandering eye. Brittany, her flaky coworker, thinks he's _cute_ though, and _that accent, Millie, that's so hot._ Jesus fucking Christ, George thinks as Mason smirks.

The Roxys are probably George's favorite customers, even when they scare the crap out of her. Easy, straightforward order, and right back out. When you know what you want, you know how you want your coffee. That's the last thing on your mind. Usually cash, if not exact change, and a wry exchange of knowing in their hard smiles, along with a dash of _take care of yourself, kid - tuck that shirt in._ It makes her think of Joy sometimes, and isn't that a kicker?

She doesn't see a lot of Daisies, because face it, how many Daisies can one world take? But there are plenty of pretty girls wandering around in whatever the newest trend is, and Christ, it makes George feel _old_. She hasn't been dead _that_ long, has she? No matter what they're wearing though, it's easy to identify the hair twirlers, the preteens dressed like hookers, the _umm_ -ers, the flakes, the ones who don't give a fuck, the ones who will insist on the single most obnoxiously complicated drink on the menu, and then ask for it sugar-free and half-caf in every possible way. There are the ones too, who come in with mascara smudged, something fluttering near exhaustion behind their eyes, inside their thin ribcages. They'll order something simple or way too complicated, but George can see their hollowness as clearly as they can't see her.

*

The day Reggie walks in the door, George shouldn't be surprised at all, but she is anyway.

There's a weird thing about coffee shops. People don't come here to drown their sorrows. They come here to be seen, or to disappear altogether. There's _expectation_ hanging in the air, even in this dinky little joint, and she feeds off it a little.

The ones they attract like flies are the teenagers, and _these_ could be any of the above, not old enough to get trashed yet. Being one seems like a lifetime ago. Well, not a lifetime, but George has never been good at saying those sorts of things anyway. They're the ones to watch - the most quiet, the most obnoxious. They inspire the same sort of half irritated, half wild thrill through her as when she has a reap going on beyond the counter.

George used to wonder if the dead really saw change the same way the living do. She loses track sometimes, especially with Reggie, who's taller, still skinny, her glasses morphed into something slimmer, more suited to her face. She's the same, invisible, curled up Reggie though, in the slouch of her shoulders beneath her cotton shirt, and the way she still shuffles her feet a little, even without the massive weight of that fucking ugly backpack she used to lug around.

She sits down at one of the far tables, not close to the bathrooms, but far enough away not to be noticed. She's still good at that, George thinks, not being noticed.

When she finally slouches up to the counter, she has a deeper voice than George remembers, less shrill, more measured like their dad's. She squints, trying to ferret out the Joy in her eyes, the way her pale hands twist, but it's always been hard with Reggie. Or maybe George just never looked. Haunting was made for someone who wanted to be seen. And her own family was always the one she never wanted to peek in on.

It takes her a second to process that Reggie's already ordered. That crease between her brows is their mother's.

"Sorry?" says George, trying to sound bored.

_Hi, Reggie._

"Small coffee. Two sugars and milk." Reggie pushes her glasses up, a habit identical to the one she's always had. She puts a hand down on the counter a little impatiently.

She doesn't know what Reggie's really thinking, what her deal, her double talk is. She never really has. But George knows her own coffee when she sees it.

"You got it, kid."

_What's going on with you, Reggie?_

*

George stopped haunting her mother and sister a few Halloweens down the road, as she watched Rube pace his own inner cemeteries and the brittle net between Joy and Reggie. She still remembers a rare moment of the two of them, blue sky and kite, the ghost of someone else, maybe not even her. She felt the sharp pang of an outsider then, trapped on the outside by their easy happiness, so vanishingly rare, and wondered if she was that sort of vampire, feeding off her own family's misery, enjoying exactly how much she had fucked them up. She paced back to Der Waffle Haus then, yelled at Mason to get her mind off it.

Reggie comes by a lot now, sometimes when George is pretty sure she should be in school, though she guesses you're kind of a freak if you don't start cutting high school at some point. Imagining Reggie driving is still one of the weirdest things she's ever done.

One of her coworkers, a flaky girl named Jenny, is exactly the type to bring Reggie out of her cocoon. Bubbly and approachable, the type who makes every customer feel like a regular. The creeps who hang around desperately _wanting_ to be regulars adore her. She has strawberry blonde hair, styled, but not overly so, taking time off from school to take care of her kid brother. Familiar, worn laugh lines all over her face and charming little imperfections. The sweetest type of girl. Probably in the big guy's good books. Yeah, that guy George has yet to see. Does a girl have to die around here to get the real treatment? Oh wait.

George is not Jenny. She doesn't even know where to begin, least of all with Reggie, who sits with her shoulders hunched in like she's wounded, a crisp expression that sits tensely on her face.

"You ok?" She wants to slap herself as soon as the words peel out.

 _I'm awkward, retarded even, and maybe creepy. How's that for an opener? Maybe I should just add 'sweetie' and_ really _run you off._

Reggie stares at her in disbelief.

George just gets the coffee.

*

By July, George has been almost fired twice because of unscheduled reap disappearances, and Reggie should be done with school, but they're both still here.

"Do you go to college?"

It's the first question she's heard out of her sister, who's still new and gangly with all the sharp angles of her face and the weird length of her body. Her hair is the same.

"No," George says shortly, wiping down the counter.

_Quit being nosy._

Reggie seems to get the message, but she doesn't let it get _her._

"What are you doing then?"

George narrows her eyes at the vaguely accusatory tone.

"What's it to you, kid?"

_Jesus, you're worst than all the other customers combined. And yeah, I know the 'kid' drives you crazy._

"Nothing," says Reggie, but she's smiling into her coffee, white hands wrapped around the mug.

She always sits at the counter now.

*

The turnover rate at the shop is a little alarming. It makes George feel old, students coming and going, even Matt replaced by someone new eventually. At this rate, she'll be Rube. She thinks of a coffee shop at the end of the world, the sky burning outside, reapers out on the street with their real faces, and everyone still clustered inside to get their last shot of caffeine. People come here to die the death of each day, to celebrate the resurrection of a new one.

Reggie's still there though, even when they start turning out the pumpkin spice lattes and the apple cider, which George hates steaming because it always gunks up the wand. It makes her think of the blue sky and the kite and what she saw between Joy and Reggie that day.

They don't really talk, but Reggie always does her homework right at the counter, sometimes until close, and George kicks her out with the mop. She wonders how much Reggie knows a lot, when she feels the stare at her back, looks into inquisitive eyes. Her sister was always smart, even when George didn't care to see it. She remembers when Joy took them to get coffee once, was exactly the type of obnoxious customer she spends hours despising now, and she and Reggie had exchanged a glance, a little hand wound in her own. It felt good then. It's harder to remember now.

There's a sinking quiet when all the other customers are trailing off, the sky dark. George likes her afternoon shifts at times like this, even though the tips suck more often than not. But she gets to be alone, with a beautifully darkening sky, and the crisp chill of weather and death in the air. She wonders about Halloween, if she should even come to work, talk to her sister through a real mask.

"Time to go home, kid."

_Doesn't Mom miss you? Don't you have friends?_

"You don't close for an hour," Reggie points out, her face still firmly set towards her book. Just like fucking Rube, who's going to be waiting if George doesn't haul ass. Doesn't go so death can sit around arguing about stupid things until the end of the world in a diner. Kiffany will probably still be there, methodically filling sugars.

The counter's squeaky clean, cleaner than even her mother would have gotten it, made that way that her absent minded strokes as she stared. Just the two of them, in the gloomy death of day, color leeching from the sky outside, business winding down in here. George wonders if you can feel like a parent when you're dead, about someone you hardly thought about at all when you were still alive.

"Go home, Reggie," she says gently, surprising herself.

Reggie looks up, squinting, her back a little straighter.

George says, "I'll be here."

_I'll be here._

*

 


End file.
